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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25881538">From the Green Shadows</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperiuni/pseuds/paperiuni'>paperiuni</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Cat and the Griffin [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Shadowhunters (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Also A Spot of Actual Witchering, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Outdoor Sex, Porn with Feelings, The Witcher AU, Unresolved Romantic Tension, a spot of angst</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 09:55:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,342</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25881538</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperiuni/pseuds/paperiuni</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>As Alec and Magnus go out on the Path together, Alec faces what it means to work with—and without—a partner. Particularly one that inspires such tender and tangled feelings in him as Magnus does.</p><p>(This is a side dish/coda to my longer Shadowhunters/The Witcher fusion (first work in the series), in which A &amp; M, witchers at large, first team up. You can read this one for feels and smut, but the main story has the wider plot.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Cat and the Griffin [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1878079</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>73</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>247</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>From the Green Shadows</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The original title of the Gdoc in which I wrote this is "outdoor bangin' for May, Witcher AU style". It is now August and this outdoor bangin' grew some shades of plot and an emotional arc, but so it goes.</p><p>If you want to find out what the Witcher AU is, <i><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/20128327">Walkers of the Winding Path</a></i> is the main story for this verse. All you really need for this story is that Alec and Magnus are fellow witchers, i.e. wandering monster hunters for hire in a medieval fantasy world. The rest is early-relationship feelings with a garnish of porn.</p><p>(As a side note: I'm sorry to everyone waiting for other fic from me—it is coming, but exactly when, I can't say. It has not been a good summer. Please be patient with me.)</p><p>Anyway. Onward and upward!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>Magnus weaves through the crowd, a tin mug held high in each hand. Alec watches his progress as he ducks around a server with a flourish of apology, a quick, glittering smile.</p><p>The taproom opens into the back garden, the row of paired doors that make up one wall thrown wide. Sailcloth awnings shelter the garden from the sun. It's still an hour to midday, but the tavern bustles with people hiding from the heat.</p><p>Alec folded himself into the quietest corner he could find. After four days in the fair city of Lyria, he still feels like a bog-soaked northerner, beggared by the colourful attire and elaborate hairdos of the locals. At least everybody speaks Common, though their accents sometimes leave Alec bemused.</p><p>Magnus puts down the mugs, which are already sweating off the cellar coolness of the cider. He's clearly thought of Alec's preference for milder fare. Taking a seat across from Alec, so his back is to the wall, he touches a hand to his neck. His fingers gleam with copper rings etched with a scale pattern, as he wipes away a bead of sweat that was making a distracting journey down his neck.</p><p>Alec snaps his gaze up to Magnus's face. It should be too hot for him to nurse visions of chasing that trickle with his tongue, even if Magnus is beautiful in his city finery. His new shirt is half-sheer linen, the sleeves slit along the outside and tied with laces below the shoulder and at the elbow and wrist. Alec has been perishing at the glimpses of his sun-tanned, well-muscled arms. Magnus may be in his worn boots and riding trousers, but he had the sides of his head shaved and his hair oiled and plaited by a marketplace barber. The barber also sheared Alec's half-wild hair to a short summer guise.</p><p>The point is, Magnus is always beautiful, but ravishing him in the back of the tavern won't fill their purses.</p><p>So Alec turns to the notices that their search for new jobs turned up. The two potential marks are the reason for their huddle in the taproom. Magnus went for drinks because he gets service faster than Alec: between two scarred strangers with their copious weaponry piled on the bench next to them, Magnus seems to be the less menacing choice.</p><p>Alec is fine with that. <em> You have other merits</em>, Magnus would say, and squeeze his knee under the table.</p><p>To his chagrin, what Magnus actually says is, "We have one sensible solution."</p><p>"Yeah?" Alec skims the notices as if they'd sprouted new information while he was ogling his hunting partner. "The beast in the village is some kind of corpse-eater. Might be tricky, but the payment's decent. I <em> like </em>the coin for the one in the Queen's Ward, but it could be a lot of bowing and scraping. Not a lot of details, and nobles get touchy about sword-toting witchers nosing around in their halls."</p><p>"One is bad enough." Magnus smirks, not a little sardonic. "Two borders on an armed invasion. Which is why <em>I</em> will melt their gold-girded hearts, and you'll sample the charms of the Lyrian countryside. Along with rooting out the bone-picker in this burial grove. We'll make a month's coin in a week."</p><p>"You want to split up?" Alec's mouth makes an unhappy shape. He smooths it out. They've been joined at the hip ever since they left Isabelle and Clary in Oxenfurt, under Jace and Catarina's watchful eye, at the end of the spring. They made solemn promises of returning before the snows, but their work is on the road.</p><p>Since their dramatic first one, they've survived a couple of hunts together. The pattern of success is still shaky.</p><p>"I'll bet you crowns to coppers that the Queen's Ward case is a haunting," Magnus says. "That means careful questions and, if I'm lucky, some juicy family secrets. Not the type of thing that gets your blood pumping, is it?"</p><p>"No." Alec patently prefers a routine trap-and-stab strategy. Just him and the monster, hopefully at bow range. "You're right. We should play to our strengths."</p><p>"Chin up, sweet thing." Magnus nudges a mug over to him. "Here's to our success."</p><p>Alec taps his mug against Magnus's. "And our safe return."</p><p>"You and your soft heart." Magnus smiles, and Alec's throat catches. "Let's see if the kitchen has something edible on the fire. I can't let you on the road on an empty stomach, can I?"</p><p>"Depends on how happy you want to keep me." Alec finds a friendly barb on his tongue, after all.</p><p>With a dry laugh, Magnus waves to a passing server.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Once they've eaten, Alec is ready to leave. They have a room at an inn outside the gates, next to the sea of wagons, tents, and stalls that form a seasonal trading town by the south wall of the city. Magnus walks Alec and Horse to the fringes of this mercantile hubbub.</p><p>Horse moves eagerly after a couple of days spent cooped up in the stables, and Alec feels the same zest quicken him, too. As lovely as Lyria is, they're both made for quieter places. It's a relief to get out of the ferment of people and activity, back into wider, wilder spaces.</p><p>Only this time, Magnus strides in step with him, his gait limber, matching his pace even though his attention flits from one sight or sound to the next. They shared the inn room, like they've shared lodgings since leaving the farmstead where they wintered with Izzy and Clary. Nobody raises a brow at <em> that</em>. Even travellers who barely know each other may sleep in the same bed in small or cheap inns.</p><p>Tongues would wag if it were known what goes on in their humble beds after the candles are blown out. These months with Magnus have been... Alec isn't sure he has the eloquence for what it's like to have somebody who wants him in this way, somebody he gets to want in return. After a lifetime of self-censure, Magnus is a gift, a revelation, a solace as deep as the knowledge that Alec has found his siblings again and they welcome him in their lives.</p><p>It's simple to care for Jace and Isabelle, even with the years of absence they had to live through. Alec's love for them may stem from the same wellspring as his regard for Magnus, but those streams run through different soils.</p><p>They can't touch each other on the street. Magnus stays an arm's length apart, but like Alec is to him, a part of him is always oriented to Alec. The thought of being without that wordless connection is almost unsettling.</p><p><em> Be practical, </em>Alec chides himself. This is the season for them, too, to turn a profit. It seems to be the greenest, most generous summer in living memory. People marvel at it in conversation left and right.</p><p>They reach the crossroads. A sign on an axe-hewn post alongside several others puts Alec's destination on the southwest road.</p><p>"Right," Alec says, with a cheer he doesn't quite feel. "Have fun bending those gilded ears."</p><p>"You've got everything? Provisions, potions, your new blankets? Carrots for Herself?" Magnus adjusts a buckle on Horse's bridle, one Alec certainly secured as he saddled her.</p><p>"<em>Now </em>you're worrying? It's a necrophage. I killed my first ghouls at seventeen."</p><p>"You still have the scars."</p><p>"That was a wraith, and I was nineteen."</p><p>"And you're a professional. Salt and stone, if I'd had half your disciple when I was your age..." Magnus pats Horse's head, letting her nose at his fine new shirt. "Well, I'll court these nobles with baseless compliments that'll hopefully sink in in a vulnerable moment, and come away with enough coin that we can put our feet up for a while."</p><p>"Right when there's a merchant with a monster problem in every inn from here to Vizima?" Magnus is being <em> odd</em>. That's the best word Alec can put to it. He can't define this mixture of elusive and solicitous.</p><p>Magnus casts a glance around, as if to check if anybody's looking. When his gaze lands on Alec, the heat in his eyes is knee-knockingly familiar. Alec finds himself backed up against the signpost. His surprised noise is caught in Magnus's mouth as Magnus claims his own in a deep kiss, the kind that often doesn't even suffer candlelight.</p><p>Magnus's fingers slot around his throat, a gentle collar to keep his head still. The difference in their heights makes Magnus stand on tiptoe, and yet Alec is the one made delightfully precarious. Closing his eyes, he grips Magnus's sleek hip, his strong shoulder. They're in the brightness of day on the queen's road, and Alec's only concern is Magnus.</p><p>Letting up the kiss, Magnus palms Alec's ass through his breeches. "It's only a week. Think of me when you get lonely on the road, no?"</p><p>Alec pulls him close, hip to hip, chest to chest. "I always think of you."</p><p>As if abashed, Magnus dips his head. He slides his hand up Alec's back. The fingers of his other hand spread across Alec's shoulder for a slow, precious moment. "Mm-hm. Ride easy."</p><p>"Full moon night, the ruins by the lake," Alec says, a reminder of their agreed-upon meeting place. He fumbles for Horse's reins as Magnus turns with a wave and a lingering look over his shoulder.</p><p>Horse prods Alec with her muzzle before he remembers he was supposed to get in the saddle.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>It takes him one night of sleeping rough to reach the village. His palaver with the ealdorwoman is curt but honest: Lyrians consider the bodies of their dead sacred, inviolate until the earth has reclaimed them, and thus the monster stealing them has the whole hamlet in disarray. Alec lets his conscience stop him from arguing for a higher price. It occurs to him that Magnus must've been aware of this cultural tenet. He sent Alec and his strict sense of honour on this hunt, knowing Alec would deal kindly with the villagers.</p><p>The conclusion both amuses and moves him. That Magnus knows him so well. It's kind of thoughtful; while this means Alec gets to lie in wait in the burial grove among stinging insects and capricious weather, he also gets to do what he does best. He doesn't have to skulk stiffly at Magnus's heels while Magnus wraps dreary nobles around his finger.</p><p>There's another side to that argument: up until now, Alec and Magnus have moved through places that are mostly Alec's purview. They spent the winter at his sister's farmstead and the early summer trekking through wildwood and countryside. Magnus is an urban creature, at home among the scholars of Oxenfurt and now, the traders and artists of Lyria.</p><p>Magnus has never hidden who he is from Alec. He comes from a witcher tradition very different from Alec's knightly Griffin, which still clings to its ancient airs and graces. The School of the Cat never disdains a tactic for being underhanded, and while Magnus is averse to needless violence, he's able and willing to charm, cheat, seduce and sabotage his way to victory.</p><p><em> So, what is it? </em> Alec asks himself archly as he leaves Horse in the ealdorwoman's stable and sets out for the grove. <em> You worry that he's gonna solve that haunting by getting under the robes of some silk-smothered highborn? He as much as told you he's fucked his patrons before. </em></p><p>He could slap himself for even thinking that. He told Magnus he understood—to Magnus, sex is another tool, alongside his swords and Signs—and he has to stick by that.</p><p>He makes camp close to the grove, a tangle of trees that must have grown freely for centuries. The moss-covered shrine in the middle is dedicated to the Lyrian version of the threefold goddess, who is worshipped here as the mistress of the life-giving earth.</p><p>It's not as if he and Magnus have ever talked about fidelity. Magnus has introduced Alec as his <em> partner </em> more than once, but between a pair of hunters for hire, the word is a useful shorthand. <em> He's with me. We work as a team. </em></p><p>Until they don't. Alec has seen such partnerships before. Most last only for a job, others are more long-term arrangements, but even those dissolve easily when convenience demands.</p><p>At the isolated farmstead, things seemed simple between him and Magnus. Izzy and Clary knew about their relationship, and so they didn't need to be more cautious than courtesy demanded. Alec has several ear-scorching memories of their trysts from the winter.</p><p>That haven is behind them. They're still together: they share the road and the journey, they kiss, they fuck, they sleep under the same covers, and maybe that should be enough for Alec. The proof of their accord is in the daily act of living it.</p><p>Is he truly going to doubt Magnus as soon as he's gone for a few days?</p><p>He makes an offering at the old shrine. He's no trespasser in this place of the goddess, but a hunter with a needful task. He studies the disturbed remains with careful hands and buries them again when he's done. Fragmentary footprints in the grass and the stench of carrion lead him to a cave system deeper in the forest.</p><p>A lone corpse-eater, then, and one cunning enough to make its lair away from its feeding ground. A ghoul pack would've been short work. Alec puts Magnus out of his mind, covers the yawning pit of his own unease with a veneer of self-rebuke, and throws himself into the hunt.</p><p>The caves open onto a fen, which has half flooded them after the recent rains. They're also so clotted with roots and mosses that he'd have to crawl through them. That leaves option two: catching the culprit in the act of feeding.</p><p>After an eye-watering day of brewing a new potion over his campfire, and three nights spent up a tree, Alec gets the creature in his sights. It's a grave hag, a bloated, spindly-limbed horror with a poisonous stinger on its serpentine tongue.</p><p>The chase is short, crude, and ungallant. He gets a few arrows into the hag before it scampers out of bow range, and follows the trail of black blood it leaves until he can corner it and stun it with a Sign. The rest is a matter of a sword-stroke to sever its head.</p><p>He returns to the village damp with mire water and his side tender from the hag's last slash at him, stopped by his gambeson. The ealdorwoman thanks him and pays him, the coins counted out from her iron-shod strongbox to the last tarnished copper piece. Despite her civility, Alec takes his leave at once. He told her to keep her people away from the burial grove while he worked. If a grave marker is askew when they go inspect it, their tenuous goodwill may not hold.</p><p>A witcher's fortune always hangs by a thread. Alec is too apt at yanking on it as it is.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>The hunt made for a reprieve from his own thoughts, but they besiege Alec again on the ride. The satisfaction of a job well done doesn't warm him for long. Over the morning, he slides from ambiguity to annoyance to admonishing himself for his own confusion. There seems to be no way out of the loop.</p><p>While he was <em> with </em>Magnus, things were clear. Winter is a quiet season, bad for travel, and so you lull yourself to your circumstances. You make the best of the company at hand.</p><p>He and Magnus have spoken of trust. Their entire relationship is an exercise in it, while they travel in lands where many treat men who lie with men as suspect at best and as anathema at worst. Alec doesn't think Magnus would ever betray him. But—tire of him, yes. Realise how different they are, how dull and untried Alec is next to him, yes. That he might do.</p><p>The moment the thought takes shape, Alec feels vile and churlish, like it had spread a stain on his soul. He can't carry on like this.</p><p>The day is young. He might as well try and reach the meeting spot today. Horse will be happy to stretch her legs.</p><p>The clouds blunt the sun's heat, and with the brisk breeze, the weather couldn't favour them more. Alec subsumes himself in the thunder of Horse's hooves, the comfort of moving together. The road sweeps through hill and dale, across a ford glimmering in the sun, past meadworks and orchards, windmills and fields. Lyria City sits in its valley on the horizon, the smoke from its fires a blue pall on the landscape.</p><p>They turn onto a road winding to the lake that fills the north end of the valley. A steep ridge guards the shore, the ground rising into crags covered by long-needled pine. Leaving the road, Alec follows Magnus's list of landmarks and finds that the bluffs give way to lush woods thriving in the loamy earth of the lakeside. They startle a deer from a thicket, its red coat flickering through shafts of sunlight as it flees.</p><p>It's like descending into an enchanted grove, alive with birdsong and meadow flowers speckling the grass. The nearness of the water infuses the air with a pleasant humidity.</p><p>Alec sharpens at the smell of woodsmoke. Magnus chose this spot because the shore is uninhabited, and the roads give the lake a berth. Horse is spent—she's rambled behind him for the last hour—and they're both sweaty and loose-limbed from the swift ride. He thought they'd arrive before Magnus, and he'd have time to pitch camp and set himself to rights.</p><p>A crumbling stone rotunda tilts into view. It's veiled in beggartick so dense you might mistake the structure for an earthen mound. The vestiges of the wooden door to the shrine litter the ground, conquered by moss. Beyond the rotunda is a glade leading up to a small bay of the lake. Giant willows stand sentinel around the glade, where a fire burns in a pit.</p><p>The sunlight picks out the bedroll thrown open next to the fire, the gear stacked on a rock, and the silver-dapple horse grazing under the willows. At the sight of the Chancellor, Horse makes a soft <em> hello </em>nicker and trots off to greet him.</p><p>"Alec!" Magnus must've heard them coming. He stands up, barefoot and at his ease. Alec abruptly doesn't know where to put any part of himself. A smile lights his face, because that's what Magnus stirs in him—wayward, audacious joy, all else being equal—and then he has his arms full of Magnus.</p><p>He flings himself at Alec with delighted candour, buries his face in Alec's shirt and hugs him tight. Alec's arms close around him as they spin a half-circle across the grass.</p><p>"Hey," Alec says, his heart leaping and his wits scattered. "Am I late?"</p><p>"No. You're right on time." When Magnus pulls back, his airy charm is in place. "And, no offence, you're <em> rank</em>." The way his nose wrinkles shouldn't make Alec's heart patter even faster.</p><p>"Sorry. I rode all day to get here."</p><p>"That's very sweet," Magnus says, "but go on, off with your clothes. The water's warm. I'll see to Horse and some food for us."</p><p>At least Alec has always taken instruction well. He strips off his odorous attire and wades into the lake to splash himself clean. Tall reeds conceal the bay, and pink water lilies line them like gemstones strung in a lady's hair.</p><p>How did Magnus <em> find </em>this place? Maybe a road led here once, but it's long since sunk into the underwood. Maybe there's a spell on the shrine, and you can only find it with the right guidance. One explanation seems as likely as another.</p><p>Magnus seems nothing but happy to see him. Alec gets dressed—in a shirt and loose-fitting Skellige trousers, which are nicer in the balmy evening than his buckskin breeches. The ground is soft under his toes, fragrant with herbs growing among the grasses.</p><p>Magnus has made flatbread in an iron pan on the fire. They wrap cheese and smoked mutton and fresh herbs into the bread and eat better than they have in weeks. Magnus brews tea from the bag he carries hidden in the lining of his pack. It's redolent with spices Alec can't name, lingering on the tongue like a memory.</p><p>Their news are soon exchanged: Magnus nods approvingly at his tale of the grave hag, then sketches out his own banishment of a wraith that was rattling the nerves of a wealthy widow and her children.</p><p>"It was the most underwhelming haunting I've seen in ages. No ailing young heiress returned as a plague maiden, no vengeful patriarch denied burial rites after his suspicious death."</p><p>"Some people would consider that a good thing," Alec says. "No excitement at all, huh? Not even a lady's maid trying to run away with the handsome witcher? I saw that in a play once."</p><p>"None, alas." Magnus affects a regretful shrug. "So I was left to pick up some nicer fare from the market and ride out early. Peach?"</p><p>Alec catches the peach as Magnus tosses it to him. His fingers bruise the thin skin; the fruit is tart and ripe and perfect, the kind you can't eat without making a mess. How long has it been since he had one like this, fresh from the orchard?</p><p>Magnus watches him eat, his eyes cinching with laughter.</p><p>"Thank you," Alec mumbles, his chin sticky with pulp.</p><p>"You're <em> quite </em>welcome."</p><p>Alec is being <em> stupid</em>. Magnus hugged him like they'd been apart for months. Magnus has bedded—and evidently loved—both men and women; he's used to relying on implication and unspoken gesture. He could embrace a friend like he did Alec, but they both grasp the difference in meaning. It pivots on their private understanding.</p><p>If they have an understanding. This is how Alec sometimes thought men of his kind must share their passions. There's so little you can <em> say</em>, in most places, so your common silence becomes a language in itself.</p><p>He never expected to find anybody. Let alone somebody like Magnus.</p><p>Lost in his musings, he's let Magnus do most of the chores. It's not like him: no matter how tired he is, he makes sure to do his part.</p><p>When Magnus stoops for Alec's empty mug, about to add it to the basket of their dirty dishes, Alec takes him by the wrist. He drops onto his haunches, one brow raised.</p><p>Alec cups his hand under Magnus's. The sun has burnished his skin to the darkness of aged bronze, and the lighter lines left by his rings show on his fingers. The nail on his fourth finger is chipped, a tiny imperfection. Sweat shines on his bare forearm.</p><p>"Can it wait?" Alec asks. "The rest of the work?" Their beds are spread out—the night will be mild, so they only have a thin net to keep away the insects. The horses are tended and have plenty to eat.</p><p>"If you have something else in mind, I'm all ears." Mirth quirks Magnus's mouth.</p><p>They're not at odds. If anybody is, then it's Alec facing off with himself. Magnus doesn't need to know about his misgivings.</p><p><em> Take me away from this before I ruin things. </em>He slides his other hand under Magnus's shirt, lines out the contour of his side. "You're sure there's nobody within earshot?"</p><p>"Well," Magnus says, impeccably level, "sound carries over water. I can't promise there isn't an errant woodsman or two on the far shore, but maybe they should be envious of this reunion." He strokes Alec's cheek, the soft place at the corner of his jaw.</p><p>"You always complain how quiet I am." Alec can almost, almost tease in answer.</p><p>"I don't complain, I observe." Magnus pulls Alec's hand up to his hip. He's not wearing a belt, though he probably has a blade strapped to his upper arm. They've certainly fucked without Magnus removing all his knives. "Besides, I have a mind to get <em> you </em> to make <em> me </em>scream."</p><p>There it is, the simmer of lust in Alec's stomach that Magnus can always rouse. "When you put it like that, how do I say no?"</p><p>Crouched down, Magnus looms over Alec a little. Alec tugs his shirt up and his knees down into the grass, and presses his mouth to his ribs. Magnus sucks in a breath, and Alec feels the shiver of it as he kisses a path up Magnus's body. His skin holds soap and smoke and a hint of sweat, a green vestige of the woods. Magnus shucks the shirt and slides his fingers into Alec's hair.</p><p>Magnus's rough inhale steers Alec across the sensitive places that he would know blind. In the same fluid flicker of hands, Magnus divests Alec of his shirt and trousers.</p><p>Kicking his feet free, Alec lets Magnus kneel astride him. His trousers hang low, baring the inline of his hip, painting a pool of enticing shadow there. It's not on purpose, not this time, but Alec closes his eyes for a count of three.</p><p>"Should I be concerned or flattered by this pause?"</p><p>"It's not my fault you go around being <em> like this</em>."</p><p>"So you say, after biting into that peach like you meant to make me jealous of a piece of fruit."</p><p>Alec's chest tightens. He aches for Magnus or because of him, he doesn't even know. He rests his forehead against Magnus's ribs.</p><p>"Alec?" Magnus's fingers idle at his nape. Alec breathes him in, familiar and still, always, a little undefinable.</p><p>Then he sighs. "Come into the water with me? I... need a moment."</p><p>"All right." Magnus's brows knit, but his hand finds Alec's as they rise. With the other, he unbuckles the knife sheath from his arm and lets it drop. </p><p>Their clothes are left behind, scattered like leaves, as Alec leads them to the shore.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>The sun dips to the west, bathing the woods in copper and gold. Desert-born though he is, Magnus is sleek as an otter in the water, orbiting Alec lazily while Alec swims a methodical figure eight around two rocks at the mouth of the bay.</p><p>A pattern. That's what he's missing. Magnus teases him for being such a creature of habit, stuck in his ways, but there's a more profound truth buried there.</p><p>He likes to know where he stands. He was alone for so long that being <em> together</em>, in whatever way, is still far from simple.</p><p>Twisting onto his back, he brushes Magnus's shoulder. Magnus pulls his stroke short and drifts over to one of the rocks, which slopes smoothly up from the water. "Had your moment?"</p><p>Alec kicks his feet to float closer. "I'm sorry. You—you did all these nice things for me, and I'm being an idiot."</p><p>"You are?" Alec can't tell if Magnus's question is genuine, but a laugh softens it. "I thought I could mostly tell when you're about to do something reckless and high-hearted."</p><p>"Not that kind of idiot. Not right now." He stares up at the lavender sky. "The kind that doesn't know a good thing when it hits him in the face."</p><p>"I assume I'm the good thing in this scenario." Magnus's humour is dry as chaff. "You did seem lost in thought."</p><p>Magnus has never scorned Alec for speaking his mind. He opens his arms to steady himself. "I don't like thinking about you with other people."</p><p>A pregnant pause follows. Alec has ample time to wish he'd just swallowed the words.</p><p>"Is that an observation or an accusation?" Magnus leans back on his hands, half out of the water, his chin canted up. Appraising.</p><p>"Uh, the first? Neither." Alec tries burying his face in his hand. All he gets is water in his eye. "Mother be merciful. Can I explain before you decide I'm hopeless and ride off without me?"</p><p>He really is, though. He's wasted days on assumed slights, things he has no right to feel hurt over, because he's jealous—and that is the word he's been avoiding—of imaginary people.</p><p>"Go on."</p><p>"You have a past. I mostly have a lack of one. But we've never talked about the present, right? The nature of this. Us." He inches over to Magnus's rock. What possessed him to have this conversation <em> in </em>the lake? "So... I don't really know what I can ask of you."</p><p>Again Magnus is quiet for an unnervingly long moment. The reeds rustle and sway.</p><p>"I haven't been with anyone else since you," he says at last.</p><p>"I didn't think you had." Alec looks down at his hands, fingers wide on the striated rock. "Not truly. I just—I don't want to ruin this, our partnership, whatever you call it, but I don't know how close to keep you. I mean, you must have friends in Lyria, like that minstrel from when we first met. And—"</p><p>"And if I run across them, I'll buy them a drink and ask for their news, and that'll be that." Magnus slides up to Alec's shoulder. His left hand covers Alec's right. "What would you ask of me, if you were free to ask?"</p><p>"Am I?"</p><p>"Always." Magnus rasps out the word, low and honest. Alec has learned the nuance.</p><p>He closes his eyes, the thought almost too dear to share. "I'd ask to keep you."</p><p>The rock makes for slippery leverage, but Alec has to brace himself there as Magnus wraps his arms around his neck. Alec returns the hug one-armed, a puzzled little sound escaping him, and Magnus's hold tightens.</p><p>"I'm here," Magnus murmurs.</p><p>Struck mute, warmth swelling in his throat, Alec nods. He feels both bared and safe, like he'd opened a dark, barred door inside himself and found only light within. The water laps at their hips. Magnus leans back to touch Alec's cheek, his eyes glittering.</p><p>"Sweetheart," he says. "Why don't you take me back to the shore and show me how you mean that?"</p><p>Alec's mind may be a step behind, but his body rises to the proposition. Magnus is soaking wet and gloriously warm against him. His fingers tracing the side of Alec's throat remind Alec that he <em> did </em>interrupt their reunion for this detour into his feelings.</p><p>A detour that seems to have, ultimately, put Magnus right back in the mood. Alec spoke the truth earlier: he has no idea how to refuse him. Desire suffuses him, bright as the gleam in Magnus's eyes.</p><p>Out of necessity, their tumbles are often brisk and furtive, noises smothered into pillows or palms. The discretion never curbs their enthusiasm, but sometimes Alec misses the chance to just take their time.</p><p>They stumble out of the lake—or, Alec does, with Magnus's legs wound around his waist and Magnus's teeth at his neck, dripping water and grumbling at Magnus. "If you keep distracting me, I'm gonna drop you in the campfire."</p><p>Magnus cranes his head helpfully. "A little to the right, a few more steps, there you go—<em>oof!</em>"</p><p>Alec dumps him onto the spread blankets with a dramatic sigh that coasts too close to laughter. Undeterred and unrepentant, Magnus arches his back, one hand beckoning to Alec. The scars on his right leg from their griffin hunt have paled to shallow, white-tinted divots. Alec can still barely suck him off without, at some point, roaming over to the scars with fingertip or tongue.</p><p>Magnus never stops him. But he watches Alec in those moments, and his fingers turn gentle in Alec's hair.</p><p>There are times Alec could drown in this man. He lets Magnus draw him down.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>The evening deepens slowly. They break from each other so Magnus can sweep the thin-woven insect net into place, draping them in dim shadow pierced by amber points of sunset. Alec hauls him back in, hazy from long, hungry kisses, half-hard from wandering caresses. In the humid stillness, every noise Magnus makes is clear and thrilling.</p><p>For once they're not in a hurry. Not too tired from the road or held back by the chance of discovery. Alec knows Magnus diverted them, but he's happy to put off the rest of the talk. He barely knew how to have it. Touch is an easier way to tell Magnus, especially when Magnus is in this light mood, eager to be pleased by Alec's efforts.</p><p>Alec mutters, "Roll over," before he can think twice.</p><p>There are tender places in their rapport; one of them is that in bed, Magnus likes to be able to see Alec. It's a crack in his facade of the free-spirited lover who shrinks from no carnal act. Alec gets at Magnus's back only when Magnus asks for it.</p><p>Magnus's eyes narrow. With an inscrutable smile, he slides off Alec and onto his stomach.</p><p>Alec leans in, slots his lips over each knob of Magnus's spine in turn, down from the nape of his neck. A part of him waits for Magnus to tense, too ill at ease after all, but he only lays his head on his arms. Under Alec's kisses, his body loosens, his heartbeat a swift, strong counterpoint to his quiet.</p><p>No sharp edges. Alec stays clear of the long scar next to Magnus's spine, made by a torturer's knife, old but so deep it will never fade. It pains Magnus sometimes, though the ache may be more in his spirit than his body.</p><p>Magnus never goes in public without a shirt, even when the weather and local custom would permit it. He never sits so he can't see the room. Alec has learned to let Magnus sleep draped around him, or, on worse nights, a little apart. The mere chance of being pinned down may keep him awake, worked to a jagged alertness.</p><p>Magnus's breaths roughen as Alec paints the curve of his ass, first with a thumb, trailed by his tongue. Alec lays kisses to the inside of his thigh as he parts them, soft-mouthed, signalling his plan. They've set their boundaries, but Alec has ventured a little beyond one.</p><p>The flat of his tongue strokes Magnus's hole, and Magnus quite obviously bites into his hand to cut off his own noise.</p><p>"Sky and stone," he says, in hoarse Ofiri, but Alec knows most of his native expletives by now. Then, in Common, "Give a man a little warning."</p><p>"Thought I did." Alec raises his head a fraction. Despite their swim, fresh sweat is gathering on his back, dripping down his nose. "I wasn't exactly angling to hold your hand."</p><p>"First he ambushes me, then he gets mouthy about it. Who are you and what have you done with my guileless Griffin?" Rich, merry laughter snakes into Magnus's voice.</p><p>"I've got better uses for my mouth right here." Alec's choices seem to be either a cheeky rejoinder or him cracking from the sheer ease Magnus radiates, the delicious quiver of desire under his humour.</p><p>Magnus reaches back to tousle his hair. His words come low, in his native language again, and Alec's rudimentary skill just pieces them together. "I am in your care."</p><p>His hand slides from Alec's head. Alec's heart hitches.</p><p>Jolting himself from the pause, he bends down again. This is still a heady, shivery act for him, something half-forbidden, even with Magnus's moans of assent thick in his ears. Magnus tries to raise his hips, but Alec steers him down, instead grabbing a folded blanket to lift him to a better angle.</p><p>He buries himself in Magnus, in the salt and musk of him. His thighs tremble under Alec's palms as Alec plies him with sucking kisses, circling closer. The first pass of his tongue is tender; they deepen from there, wet and lush against hot flesh. He sets a firm rhythm he could keep up for hours, just irregular enough that a particular sweep or push startles Magnus into crying out.</p><p>The close space sheens them both with sweat. Magnus's hips twitch and jerk, though he tries to keep still for Alec, to soak in the slow desire that coils around them both. In spite of his resolution not to rush, Alec feels his jaw starting to ache. His cock hangs heavy, and he knows he could find the mild, thick balm Magnus keeps in his pack. He could push into Magnus like this, by inches, holding them both on the teetering rim of pleasure.</p><p>Magnus squirms against the blankets, kicking at the air. His moan peters into short, shattered gasps. Each noise Magnus makes hits Alec like the rush of a good spar, the kind that keeps you on your toes. Alec can read his body by now, but there are still places unexplored between them. How would Magnus take a slickened finger alongside Alec's tongue, so he could—</p><p>His thought is cut short as Magnus twists away to push him upright. His eyes are dark and dim as he turns to face Alec, his cock ruddy and curved to fullness, his hands gratifyingly unsteady on Alec's shoulders.</p><p>"Enough?" Alec cups his cheek. Magnus slants into his palm with a hum, inhales against his fingers.</p><p>"Any—any more and I'm going to burst like a Rainsday firework." Magnus licks his dry lips. "Don't want to. Not just yet."</p><p>"Wasn't that the point?" Alec makes an evocative gesture at Magnus's cock, beading with wetness.</p><p>Magnus's eyes spark. "Oh, my hasty darling. Let me show you something."</p><p>Bemused, Alec nods. He lets Magnus arrange them on the bedding and lies back so Magnus can crawl between his knees. Magnus still seems a little loose in his usually honed coordination, haphazard with pleasure, and Alec stifles a pinprick of glee.</p><p>His hips clench as Magnus palms him, his hand slippery-smooth with the balm he mixes himself. Of course he hid a jar somewhere nearby. It wouldn't be the first time. Alec lets out a laugh that winds into a groan midway through.</p><p>He enjoys touching Magnus. It anchors him, in a way that mostly escapes words, to please Magnus, to have him open to him. Doing the same for Magnus is good in a different way. Putting himself in Magnus's hands in bed is a natural extension of doing so on the hunt. Both take trust, and Alec, quietly priding himself on <em> being </em> trustworthy, has begun to consider that giving trust matters as much as accepting it.</p><p>"So far," he says, as Magnus strokes him, at the base, teasing his balls with a thumb, "I—I'm not sure what's <em> new </em>here."</p><p>Dipping in, Magnus tugs at Alec's peaked nipple, sucks a near-bruising kiss there. The pooled lust in him spikes into heat. He unfolds himself onto his back, fisting and opening his hands.</p><p>"Just let it build," Magnus murmurs. "I want you with me."</p><p>He goes on, brushing sweet spots with a pinch of fingers or a toothy kiss, one hand still working Alec's cock. The touches pick at the steady pace of his hand. Alec is both spurred and lulled, a part of him sinking, the rest wide awake to Magnus's caresses. As their tumbles tend to go, by now he should be buried in Magnus's mouth or splayed over his lap, Magnus's fingers deep in him, chasing a muffled climax.</p><p>Except that's not the point, it seems. The point is that when Magnus finally—oh, gods, finally—puts his mouth on Alec, swipes a kiss around the aching head, Alec throws his head back and shouts. Unabashed, unstifled, no care for a single thing beyond Magnus.</p><p>His hands go to Magnus's shoulders, stroking the back of his neck. His knees bow helplessly. He gives a needy, throaty rasp as Magnus swirls a wet finger over his hole—not a preamble, but a delight in itself, teasing the tender skin even as he sucks Alec in shallow glides.</p><p>There it is. Taking their time is the entire point. The ebb and flow of it, the sharp second swell, the long tide of sensation unbroken by a peak and a fall.</p><p>His fingers scrape up through Magnus's hair until he remembers to gentle his grip. Magnus's only response is to gasp damply and take him deeper. Each firm slide of his tongue jars Alec's control. His warm, calloused hand pins Alec's hip in place, so Alec can only take what he gives, beside himself with pleasure.</p><p>"Ah, fuck," Alec gasps, though the word is curiously crude for what's passing between them, in each kiss and grasp. "Magnus, <em> Magnus, </em>love, I—"</p><p>There's another word Alec has not faced. He's thought it; he's let it curl up, silent and precious, in a corner of his mind. But now he's spilled it into the air.</p><p>Magnus lifts his head, and Alec can't help his bereft whine. "Don't stop. Please, I'm..."</p><p>"Tell me." Magnus's voice sounds feverish, though his eyes are keen under his blinking lashes. He climbs into Alec's lap, knees wide, one slick hand still on Alec's cock. "Tell me again what you told me in the lake."</p><p>Something slots into place. Levering himself up, without grace, Alec takes Magnus's face in his hands, draws his thumbs over his burning cheeks. Their heads bend together.</p><p>"I want to keep you." The words come steady.</p><p>"I am yours," Magnus says, hushed, against Alec's cheek. "Yours alone, if you want it so."</p><p>Alec clutches him close. His free hand fumbles down to meet Magnus's, in a clumsy, frantic effort to join them as closely as they can be. Magnus makes a soft, ragged sound as Alec slides into him, both of them too ready, too raw for any detours.</p><p>It is a short, heady way from there. The rhythm is familiar, though they keep thwarting it, Magnus wrapping himself around Alec, Alec kissing his shoulder, his neck, his cheek. They don't make love like this often, but it feels needful now, in all its fraught intimacy. Magnus makes himself ease down, rolling his hips, tight around Alec. Taking him in hand, Alec strokes him with fracturing patience until he groans his release into Alec's shoulder.</p><p>Alec follows him almost too suddenly, done in by his unravelling. They brace on each other as the pleasure melts from their entwined bodies.</p><p>The nocturnal sounds of the woods come back to Alec as if someone had pricked a bubble to let them in. Magnus shifts, but only to set his head on Alec's shoulder, apparently in no rush to be dislodged from his lap. At some point, leaves of grass have been rubbed into his hair, from between their messy blankets. Alec picks out the delicate blades one by one.</p><p>"I want it so," he whispers. "I never have before. I didn't think it was possible, for somebody like me."</p><p>Magnus tips his chin up with two fingers. His smile is entirely in his eyes.</p><p>"I'd tell you that you're a fool," he says, "to have set your heart on a rag-tag witcher who lets the wind blow him where it will, but there's two of us here, sharing the trouble of loving such a man."</p><p>If Magnus doesn't balk at the word, then Alec has no excuse. He clasps Magnus's hand, pressing his nose to the knuckles.</p><p>"Trouble shared is trouble halved, or so I hear."</p><p>"Doubled, surely, in this case." Magnus chuckles. "I've dragged you into enough of it."</p><p>"You have. And still, going with you to hunt a maybe imaginary opinicus was the best thing I've ever done."</p><p>Magnus beams at him. It's a quiet light, like the summer moon above the water, piercing the night mists. "Come on. I think we're due another dip in the lake."</p><p>"This time," Alec says, stretching his arms up, "you can carry me out."</p><p>"As you wish." Magnus kisses the top of his head, then pulls them both to their feet.</p><p> </p><p>*</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>If you want to find me on social media, I am on:</p><p>tumblr @<a href="https://poemsfromthealley.tumblr.com/">poemsfromthealley</a><br/>twitter @<a href="https://twitter.com/juneofthepen">juneofthepen</a> and my fic hashtag is #junefic</p></blockquote></div></div>
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